Burning Inside
by Kamenashi-JaeJoong
Summary: During Breaking Dawn. A time when Jacob took his POV away and we see what happens in the Cullen's home while Bella is pregnant. I do not own Twilight or any of its characters. They belong to Stephenie Meyer.


Bella

* * *

I tried not to wince as the baby gave another strong kick. He kicked me in the center of my stomach and I knew there was going to be a bruise I would have to try and fail to hide. I glanced through the corners of my eyes to see if Edward noticed, but his eyes were on the television, as if if he looked away he would miss something crucial. I sighed to myself, thinking I had gotten away with it until his hand came over mine and gave it a squeeze. I should have known better. Edward didn't miss anything.

But whatever happened to me, it didn't matter. I was carrying our child, something we both thought would never happen.

I put my unoccupied hand across my belly and rubbed my baby through my skin. He shifted toward my hand as though he knew what I was doing and I smiled. Then he fidgeted right under my ribs, pressing them in an awkward position and I gasped.

The entire family flocked and Edward's eyes were on me instantly.

"Are you all right, Bella?"

"What did he do?"

"Is anything broken?"

"Is the baby all right?"

"He's fine, Rose," I answered. "He's just restless today." Rose smiled radiently and settled back onto the arm chair she had perched on with Emmett.

"Did he break anything?" Carlisle asked again, getting down to my eye level on the couch and gently fingering my belly.

"No, not this time." I tried to joke. Edward stiffened beside me. "He just... moved. He's fine."

"But are you?"

"Yes."

Carlisle paused and barely nodded before he went back to his place with Esme on the couch, giving me only one glance before he turned his attention to the televsion too. I noticed Alice's face was in a pained expression as she studied ahead and I wondered what she saw. Then she got up and left, rubbing her temples with her eyes closed. Jasper followed right behind her.

With the family still again, I sneaked a glance at Edward, but he had not turned his attention back to the television. Instead, his eyes were flicking across the room, unable to settle on one place. I gave his hand a squeeze and his eyes were immediately on mine.

"What are you thinking about?"

It took him a moment to answer, I suspected he was trying to come up with an appropriate answer for me. "The wolves are patroling close to the house." He gave me a smile that didn't reach his eyes. I gave him a feeble one back and went back to rubbing our child in my stomach.

What would he look like? I pictured the perfect child from my dreams, with the copper hair he inherited from his father and beautiful green eyes. My heart swelled with the thought.

I stretched as I yawned and hid the grimace as the baby stretched with me. I hadn't been getting enough sleep lately because the baby was moving almost all the time now. I leaned over and used Edward's cold shoulder as a pillow. I moved my hand out from under his so I could lace our fingers together and sighed again.

I felt him turn his head to look at me. "Are you tired?"

I nodded sleepily. "A little." With graceful ease he was out from under me and had me in his arms before I could move. I wrapped my arms around his neck and inhaled his scent, letting it sweep over me like perfume.

"Are you taking her to your room?" I heard Carlisle ask.

"Yes."

A pause. "We'll have to make another place for her to sleep. What if something happened while she was upstairs?"

"No." Edward said with such force that I wondered if it was his answer to the question spoken or one asked silently.

"All right, all right. We'll make a place for her for tonight in the room we do not use. For now, take her upstairs."

I didn't feel anything until I was put down in the bed in Edward's room seconds later. He pulled the covers around me and then got on his knees beside the bed, resting his head near mine as he pushed hair away from my face. When I looked in his eyes, I saw the pain he was trying to hide from me and, worst of all, the way he was blaming himself.

This isn't a bad thing! I wanted to yell at him, but I was too tired and knew better.

"I love you." I said instead.

"I love you too." I heard the blame in his voice and had I not been so tired, I would have smacked

him even if it did bruise my hand.

I reached out and touched his face, curving my hand around his jaw to stroke the skin under his ear. My eyes drooped before I could finish my third round.

"Sleep," He said gently.

"Will you be here when I get up?" I felt childish asking.

Had I not known him better, the small smile he gave me would have been sweet and beautiful

instead of bitter and hard. "I always will." As he got to his feet he bent over to kiss me on the forehead. "I love you." He repeated, his lips brushing my forehead.

I found his hand and put pressure against his fingers before the darkness of sleep enveloped me.

* * *

Edward

* * *

She was asleep. Her body hidden beneath the comforter did not hide the monstrosity hiding inside her and for one insane moment I considered killing it as she slept.

I could hardly look at her without her body screaming at me to see what I had done to her. Her face was thin and almost sallow, with dark circles under her eyes and her cheek bones more prominent. And under the blanket, her body was losing its life; her belly rounded unnaturally and covered in dark bruises to the point where there was no pure skin left. Her ribs were bound because the thing inside her had broken most of them. When she walked, her process was slow and laborous and when she spoke it was feeble. She slept most of the day in a daze because she could not sleep at night for the thing inside her.

This was all my fault. My wife was dying and I could do nothing about it. I had caused it, I had let it happen, and she was taking this like it was natural.

I spun from the room and flew down the stairs, my intent of the door and what lay beyond it. I was stopped by Alice who was leaning against the wall with her face scrunched.

"When will you be back?" She asked without looking.

"I'll be back. Will you watch her for me? If anything happens to her while I'm gone, you do what you have to let me know." Alice face scrunched tighter.

"I'll watch her."

I snarled and rounded on Rosalie, my teeth bared. She bared her teeth back at me. "Don't worry, Edward. I'll make sure she and the child are safe." But that is not what she wanted. She could care less if Bella lived as long as she gained the child that was denied her.

I snarled at her again and crouched to spring for her throat.

"Edward, no!" Alice yelled.

"Edward!" Carlisle stood in front of Rosalie with Emmett, Jasper, and Esme in pursuit behind him. Don't do this, Edward.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Emmett growled, his hand possively around Rosalie.

Oh, God. I heard Esme think. Her hand was covering her mouth and her eyes were wide.

Edward, don't. Alice said, her eyes unfocused. In her mind I saw what was about to come and hated myself for it. I purposefully made myself relax. I stood swiftly and my family stiffened. A wave of calm swept the room and tried to drown my fury. My eyes shot to Jasper and he met my glare without flinching, the wave of calm rolling stronger. But I did not want to be calm. I did not want to be persuaded.

But one look at Esme reared me back. I was already physically killing one girl, how could I let this happen to my mother?

I visably relaxed and stood straight. "I apologise, Rosalie." I said neutrally. "I should not have treated you as I did. I would appreciate, though, if Alice would watch over Bella." I turned and went around them for the stairs.

Are you coming back? Alice asked, looking ahead. Please come back. Edward, things are going to be fine. But it was not the future she was seeing, but her own sisterly concern.

"Thank you, Alice." I whispered so only she could hear. I headed for the door at a normal pace and waited until I was past the porch before I ran with as much speed as I could toward the forest and onward.

The numbness was disappearing and I wanted to be far, far away before my pain was blistering. Vaulting the rivers and leaping the trees did nothing. Nothing would ever tire me until I could feel nothing. Feeling nothing would never be a pleasure I could have now that I had done this. Now that I had caused this abomination to occur.

I had reached the forests of Canada before the pain became completley unbearable. It boiled in my body like fire, worse than anything I had ever felt before, beyond the pain of the three day turn. I ran to the nearest tree and punched it. It fell as I swiveled to uproot the next one and hurl it into another.

I had been selfish enough. I had know better. I knew better. But my desire for her had over ruled everything I had known, everything I had held moral and I took what was not supposed to be mine. I snatched a rock the size of a child and hurled it into a huge fir where it shattered on contact and caused the tree to buckle under the blow, groan from the very center of its being, and then fall with a crash that shook the ground.

I had let my lust over power my senses and let myself take her where I had not only hurt her but I had caused this monstrous abomination to be planted in her belly where it now was sucking the life out of her. I should have known had I not done it myself, something of me would have killed her.

I jumped a tree and snapped a thick branch from its trunk and crushed it with my fist, falling back down by my fingers down the trunk, leaving permanent marks etched in the face of the tree as splinters rained.

When I reached the ground, I landed on the balls of my feet, crouched. In my mind, she filled my head, with her body that was thin and in pain and dying with that mountain of a killer protruding from her.

I was responsible.

I was the cause of it.

I was a monster.

I was responsible for killing the woman I loved more than my own life.

I covered my face to block her image from my mind, but it was still there, haunting me with the accusations and proof that no matter what I did, no matter how I tried to be, I was still a terrible monster.

"God, damn me to Hell!" I screamed into my hands. The echoes filled the area and there I waited for God to strike me dead and send me to the very pitts of where I belonged.

I fell in a crumpled heap and did not even bother to move. There was no way I should have been out of energy, had I the strength to do it, I would have gone on forever. But, impossibly, my body did not want to move anymore. My mind did not want to think anymore. All I could do was see her face in my mind, her thin, sallow face that still smiled at me like I was not a monster and her hands that held that thing gently, as if it would break if she ever let it go.

Why could she not understand? It would break her! She would die before this thing had the satisfactiong of breathing! Why wouldn't she listen to me? But why should she? I was the one that did this to her. She should hate me. She should despise me. She should have let me take that leech out of her and then leave me forever as was my punishment.

God, what had I done? My entire world was breaking, dying before my eyes, and I could do nothing to stop it.

"Bella, I'm so sorry." I whispered, unable to do anything else.

When I came back home, Bella was still asleep. I ignored Rosalie and she me as she left with Alice from her room and I took their place. I sat down beside her on the bed, taking her hand that seemed so fragile.

Her face twitched in pain as I heard the fetus turn inside her. I felt helpless beside her. Here, in the house, in this room, with her near me, I could do nothing. She wanted the child and I was allowing her to keep it. I wanted to rip it from her, but she did not want that and I would abide by her wishes.

Her heart rate accelerated while she struggled out of sleep. Her eyes fluttered and opened. She smiled when she saw me. I wished she had thrown me out of the room.

"Hi." She said, her voice thick with sleep. "How long have I been out?"

"Four hours."

"That's more sleep than I got last night." She struggled to sit up, but her protruding stomach would not allow easy movements. Pushing the covers back, she inspected her belly through her shirt. She no longer allowed me to see her because of her bruises. A selfish part of me allowed it because I didn't want to.

Her thin fingers traced patterns over her stomach through her shirt. "I wonder if he sleeps too." She thought aloud.

I didn't say anything.

"Well," she sighed and then turned to get off the bed. I got up before she could move anymore and took her in my arms. I felt the leech kick against her and to me, the force behind it more than a normal fetus should have been. She pressed her face to my neck to hide her face of pain.

I gritted my teeth together and fought the urge to run her to Carlisle to tear the thing out of her.

I took her back downstairs and set her on the sofa, making sure she was as comfortable as possible.

"Is there anything I can get you, Bella?" Alice asked by my elbow.

Bella shook her head. "No. I don't think I could hold anything down." I shot a look at Carlisle while her attention was diverted and he stepped in.

"Bella, I think you should try to eat something. You're getting in danger of starvation and so is the fetus."

She paused a for hardly a moment and then agreed to try.

We had to get the monster involved to get her to do anything.

I sat down beside her as Rosalie rushed to get Bella something to eat. I took her hand while she settled herself against me and tried to watch the television.


End file.
